


Acceptance

by xrosepetalsx



Category: Super Junior
Genre: 100 Super Junior Fics Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 14:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xrosepetalsx/pseuds/xrosepetalsx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hyukjae’s pined for the acceptance of his father since he was five year’s old…and at 30 he still doesn’t have it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acceptance

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ for the 100 Super Junior Fics Challenge (#44). Archived here.
> 
> LJ Version [here](http://insanityplays.livejournal.com/2047.html)

Hyukjae’s five years old when it happens the first time. And it isn’t a big deal. Because it’s just this once. It’s just for the night.

He’s used to his father reading to him every night, a different story from the thick anthology of fairy tales that sit next to his comic books, the one’s he bought for the ‘pretty pictures’ and would later deny ever saying.

But that night, when Hyukjae bounces into the room in his pajama’s and announces he’s ready for bed, he’s met with the response “No story tonight Hyukjae, I’m too tired.” and he slumps his shoulders and leaves without putting up a fight. Because it’s just this once. Just for the night.

And the next day, his father is back in his room at 8 o’clock, reading him a bed time story from the thick anthology. So Hyukjae quickly forgets the incident from the night before as routine settles in like it’d never been disturbed.

It’s only a week later when another tiny pinprick is jabbed into Hyukjae’s fragile five year old heart from repeated words that affect him in way’s no one expects them to affect him.

A month later, it’s almost routine for his father to say “No story tonight Hyukjae, I’m too tired.” and two tiny pinpricks have quickly hit seventeen tiny pinpricks, scattering like leaves in the wind, but so, so much smaller. So small that no one see’s them as they float past, no one notices a little boy’s future written on the wind.

\--

The next time it happens, Hyukjae’s seven years old and has an obsession with baseball, the sport his father follows on television. He tries out for every little league team he can find, and finally get’s accepted to one. Granted, it might not be the best team in little league, but he’s happy.

Because he get’s to play, and he get’s to make his father happy.

And at first it starts out looking like that as his father smiles at him from across the dinner table and asks him how practice went. He gives every little detail he can remember and he beams when his father ruffles his hair, calling him “Sport” and asking if he wants to go outside and play catch for a while.

And with that, Hyukjae’s exhaustion from practice is gone as he jumps out of his chair and runs out ahead of his father, laughing as he skirt tails him and is reprimanded by his mother for running in the kitchen. He doesn’t even care that he forgot his glove and a ball inside, or that it’s rather cold out and he’s all muddy from practice.

The half hour of playing catch with his father is worth it after he shoots back into the house to grab his glove and a ball, and the extra scrubbing to get off the caked on mud doesn’t bother him nearly as much as it might have on any normal day. He’s too busy beaming, the glow from spending time with his father blocking any darkness from encroaching on his little world.

His father comes to every one of his games for two months (really only four games) and plays catch with him before practice on the weekends and after dinner on the weekdays.

After that two months, however, he starts missing games, and catch dwindles to a few times after dinner, and an occasional weekend day. Never more then 15 minutes anymore, and Hyukjae finds himself conveniently forgetting to ask after the first two weeks of looking up hopefully to have those hopes crushed by a shake of the head.

After another month, Hyukjae quits little league, never getting one reprimand from a father who’d been so excited he joined in the first place. Hyukjae finds himself wondering if his father even knows he quit, as a week before both his mother and himself had stopped reminding him of game’s coming up.

Little pinpricks turn into thumbtack sized holes, shattered hopes of recognition flying away on the wind.

\--

At ten years of age Hyukjae’s back to trying to please his father, this time in the form of grades and knowledge. At school, he read’s ever fact containing book that he can find, and he pays attention to every little thing his teacher says. His grades sky rocket, and both his parent’s seem pleased.

The hug from his mother embarrasses him, but the smile and nod from his father after he reads his report card later that night excites him, because now he knows how to get the quiet acceptance and notice.

He get’s a little greedy, and later on, he’ll wonder if that’s what caused his downfall. He starts coming home with random facts rehearsed in his head, and announces them at the dinner table, nearly bouncing in his chair as he tells him the newest piece of information he’s learned.

At first, his father laughs, seemingly pleased at the things his son learns, at how smart he is. Hyukjae’s grades continue to stay high, and he doesn’t spend as much time playing video games with Donghae and Sungmin. Instead, he learns as much as he can so he can surprise his father.

His father starts asking him at the start of dinner what new thing he learned that day, and Hyukjae doesn’t notice the slightly mocking tone his father asks with. Instead, he beams like a child on Christmas and recites not one, but three random things he’d learned that day. His mother smiles at him like always, but he isn’t looking for her response.

He only sees his father’s increasingly tight-lipped smiles and can’t figure out what he did wrong. So he decides to take it up a notch, and at school that afternoon, he memorizes not one, not three, but ten random facts to take home to his father. He sits with a book in front of his face all day, ignoring the calls of his friends to come play with him, brow furrowed as he tries to get each fact word for word in his head.

He beams all the way home, beams as he does his homework, and sits on the couch fidgeting for an hour, waiting for dinner and his father, all the while reciting and re-reciting his ten facts in his head.

When dinner rolls around and his father doesn’t ask what he learned that day, Hyukjae gets a little fearful and nervous. He wonders, briefly, if he’s too late , but calms himself with the knowledge that he’ll win his father’s affections back tonight with the ten fact’s he learned at school today.

So he jumps into the dinner time silence with a “Did you know…” and makes it through five facts before his father stands up with a _bang_ as his hand’s hit the table, a glare on his face. Both Hyukjae and his mother jump.

“Okay, we get it Hyukjae! You know everything! Fucking smart ass…” Followed by a reprimand from Hyukjae’s mother that sends his father stomping out of the room. Hyukjae looks down with tears in his eyes, staring at trembling hands and feeling his heart break. He’d failed again.

This time, with a start, Hyukjae recognizes this feeling for what it is. Rejection.

Thumbtack sized holes make way for nails twisted and shoved through his heart, sending blood as tears down his face and leaving a ragged hole in what used to be a whole heart.

\--

Fifteen years old and Hyukjae’s not so smart anymore. His grades dropped back to the normal after that fateful night in the kitchen when his father called him a smartass as if it were a bad thing, as if it were a sin. He went back to playing video games, of wheedling out of doing his homework, of passing tests only because he was a good test taker.

His father didn’t call him a smart ass anymore. He called him a dumbass instead. He called him a liar when he said his homework was done, grounded him when his scores were lower then a high B (something he forced Hyukjae to calculate for him after he brought home every test), and wouldn’t let him read books with less then 300 pages (books he was given once a month and forced to read).

Starting High School as a Freshmen after this summer, Hyukjae can’t help but grab hold of something he hopes will win him his father’s acceptance. Football. He jumps into the sport, even with his lanky limbs, almost immediately, trying out and making it almost on default. He goes to every practice and plays with every fiber of his being, giving it everything he’s got. As if he wants it as badly as he doesn’t.

He keeps up with it for his father, too tired after school and with barley enough energy for a shower and homework to even bother checking for his father’s quiet acceptance. He sits on the bench all of the first game, the second game, and finally get’s his chance to play in the third game.

When he comes home to announce the news to his parents, his mother is as supportive as ever. But he isn’t looking for her acceptance, instead pinning his father with his gaze and waiting for his response.

“It’s about damn time.”

That Friday, he does indeed play, and he manages to score a goal, and block two. When he leaves the locker room after a lost game and heads out to the parking lot, he finds his mom waiting in the car with a sad smile. His father is no where to be seen.

“He had to work late. He couldn’t make it.” But when they get home, they discover his father in the living room on the couch, and when Hyukjae heads up stairs, he hears his parent’s strained conversation.

“How long have you been home?”

“Two hours.”

“And you couldn’t _make it_ to your son’s first game!?”

“Ah, he’ll be fine. They’ll be plenty more games if he was good enough to get played again.” Hyukjae slammed the bathroom door shut with ferocious anger before he could hear his mother’s response, immediately turning on the hot water, undressing quickly, and sitting against a shower wall to hide angry tears.

How was he supposed to gain his father’s acceptance?

It was a month later, during a celebratory party for a game Hyukjae helped win with two scores and five blocks, that Hyukjae had his first drink. He didn’t go home that night, Donghae calling home for him to inform his parent’s of his spending of the night. He’s too drunk to notice, too drunk to care, and if he hadn’t passed out, Donghae doesn’t know how he would have gotten him upstairs without waking his parents and arousing suspicion do to his loud rambling.

He’s too numb to feel the ragged hole growing bigger, too numb with the wonder at his new found ability to plug it up. He’d never bothered to wonder if it were possible to mend it.

\--

Eighteen with anything but the wonder of being eighteen. Pressured to go to the same college his father went to, pressured to become what his father is, pressured to give up the one dream he’s had for himself all of his life.

His support comes from his friends, the buoy that’s kept him alive for the last thirteen years of his life, and he’s beyond grateful for it. But that hardly matters to him. All he wants, all he’s ever wanted, is to make his father proud. And if that means giving up his dream…so be it.

So Hyukjae does what all his friends tried to keep him from doing, and that was fall back into the pit of worship to his father, fall back into the need to make him proud. He applies to all the colleges his father tells him to apply to, and get’s ready for a career in an office. He doesn’t notice the application his best friend slips into the pile, nor does he notice that the essay Donghae asked him to write to help him get into the same dance academy Hyukjae wanted to get into was stapled to the back of that application and sent off.

He doesn’t find out until two months later, right after graduation, when he’s accepted and so is Donghae. When he opened the letter, he cried, hands scrambling to find the phone he knew was somewhere on his bed, hidden under the rumbled sheets.

“Donghae…” He whispers when he finally finds it and dials the one number he knows by heart. He hears Donghae’s soft laugh across the line and let’s out a sob he’d meant to hide.

“Ah, Hyuk! Don’t cry! I’ll be right over.” And it doesn’t take Donghae more then 5 minutes to get to Hyukjae’s house, laughing when he see’s the acceptance letter gripped tightly in his best friend’s hand. He pull’s him into a tight brotherly hug and whispers in his ear “Don’t scare me like that! I almost thought you’d been rejected! And after all that effort I put into getting you to apply without knowing too!”

Hyukjae finds out later that Donghae’d been accepted too, but he’d already known, without a doubt, that Donghae would get in.

When he leaves to the college of his dreams with Donghae, he tries to ignore the glowering look his father is sending him, but he feels his heart break none the less. He need’s a drink when they finally get off the plane, and Donghae can do nothing but give it to him.

After all, what are best friends for?

\--

It’s when their 21 and finally legal to drink that Hyukjae first kisses Donghae, brain too fuzzy with Alcohol to think of the amount of rejection this will cause from his father. It’s when he wakes up, naked next to Donghae, that it hits him, and he unceremoniously throws Donghae out of his room in their shared apartment, locking the door behind him.

His head screams from the hangover from last night, and his heart aches from the loss of his best friend. He knows this is going to screw them up, and it’s not just the fact that they slept together, but the fact that he didn’t sleep with Donghae just because he was drunk.

But because he wanted to.

He avoids Donghae like the plague for the next week, afraid of the feelings long buried that he quickly discovers not long after the hangover the morning after he’d slept with Donghae fades. He’s in love with Donghae, but he doesn’t remember when it happened.

He wishes it hadn’t.

His father doesn’t accept him yet, but he doesn’t hate him either. He’s no longer angry that his son went against his wishes and ran after his own dreams instead. But Hyukjae knows the only way to get his father to accept him now is to marry a nice wife and have three children.

He can’t do that with Donghae, and this is his last chance to get his father’s acceptance, something he’s been pining after since he was a five year old boy.

So he tries to cut Donghae out of his life altogether, going on dates on a nightly basis, girl after girl, looking for someone he can share the rest of his life with. Two weeks before graduation, he gives up.

He can’t look at anyone the way he looks at Donghae, and his heart refuses to be shared with anyone but his best friend.

He doesn’t stop avoiding Donghae, and it’s Donghae who’s forced to finally confront him about it.

“Damnit Hyukjae!” He growls when he finally manages to pick his bedroom lock, storming in and slamming the door shut behind him. Hyukjae yelps from where he’s sitting on his bed, old pictures of the two of them spread out on his bedspread.

He jumps up, scattering the pictures with a sweep of his hands, and snarls at Donghae.

“What the hell are you doing!? Get out!” But Donghae doesn’t move, eyes wide and mouth open in a little o.

“Hyukkie…” He whisper’s softly, pained eyes meeting fearful ones.

“I said get out!” Hyukjae growls again, taking a step forward and pushing Donghae until his back hits the door. He tries to hide behind the anger, tries to ignore the feel of his heart beating against his rib cage, the want to pull the other into his arms and never let go again.

Donghae’s eyes don’t relinquish their hold on Hyukjae’s, and after a moment, he holds his arms open in invitation. Hyukjae feel’s the tears prick in his eyes but stands his ground, crossing his arms and trying to keep the anger on his features.

When the tear’s fall, he steps into the others embrace.

\--

He’s 30 now, and his parent’s long ago learned of his feelings for Donghae. His mother, predictably, welcomed Donghae into her life as her son in law (even if it was impossible they would ever be able to get married) and his father, predictably, forbade him from ever returning.

The rejection caused no physical pain in Hyukjae’s world this time around, and he only nodded his head proudly, never once backing down. His mother and father were divorced now, and Hyukjae and Donghae ran a dance studio, living happily together in a flat just above it. Hyukjae no longer pined after his father’s acceptance. He didn’t need to anymore.

He had his mother and Donghae, the two people who’d stuck by him his entire life. What did he need the acceptance of a man who never cared enough for him in the beginning for anyway?


End file.
